Paquius Proculus an wife

Paquius Proculus an wife

The fresco, painted in Fourth Style, portrays a middle class Pompeian couple, unquestionably husband and wife, and was situated on the end wall of the room so that it would be visible to anyone entering the atrium. The man depicted is the baker Terentius Neo, as is revealed by the graffito inside the house and not, as was mistakenly believed for a long time, Paquius Proculus, whose name appears on an electoral inscription painted on an external wall. The couple are portrayed as sophisticated and well-off, cultivated and fashionable: the woman wears a red cloak, a pearl necklace with a gold pendant and pearl earrings; she has the typical hairstyle of the Neronian period, with her hair divided by a central parting and gathered at the nape, except for some tight curls that fall on her forehead. She makes a show of her learning by holding a diptych of wax tablets and a stylus in the same pose as the so-called figure of Sappho; the baker wears a toga, indicating the dignity of magistratuus, and flaunts the rotulus. Despite all these trappings, the features of the couple, faithfully rendered by the artist, betray the provincial origin of these two parvenus, probably Samnites who, after achieving economic wellbeing, sought to conceal their humble origins and gain direct entry into polite society.